This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them.
Culture
The King is the Field – Chabad Insights on the Divinity of Creation
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During the High Holidays, we strive to fashion our heart to become a dwelling place for God in the physical, earthly realm, a dirah batachtonim. However, the earliest aggadic (storytelling) midrash, Genesis Rabbah (4th or 5th century), taught that “the root/essence of God’s presence was in the lower creatures / `iqar Shekhinah batachtonim haytah.” (19:7)
If the Shekhinah, the indwelling presence of God, was essentially in all creatures, how did we arrive at the idea that the primary dwelling place of God was within the human heart?
Environment
Bal Taschit: What's Wrong With the Jewish Law Against Destruction and Waste — and How to Fix It
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What seems to have been missed in past rabbinic interpretation of bal tashchit is that the rule given in the Torah is both literally and fundamentally about sustainability – about what sustains you: “Don’t destroy the sources that nourish your lives over generations for the sake of a moment’s need, no matter how dire that need is.”
Gender and Sexuality
Unrighteous Anger – Queen Vashti and the Erasure of Transgender Women
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The night after Purim the two of us sat feasting – a queer Hebrew bible scholar and a trans woman activist. The book of Esther was on our minds, as we read Esther every year on Purim, the festival when we celebrate the brave Jewish queen who saves her people from annihilation in Persia. Also on our minds was the “bathroom panic” gripping the nation over the perilous prospect of transgender women using women’s restrooms. To address the threat, state legislatures are being flooded with proposed measures to deny transgender people access to restrooms and facilities in accordance with their authentic gender identity, instead forcing them to use the restroom matching the inaccurate gender assigned to them at birth. To those who may have missed the news, the rallying cry of these bills is “no men in women’s restrooms.” Since the trope that transwomen are actually men is patently absurd, we sought to delve into the mental plumbing of the cisgender men who craft these “bathroom panic” laws. What is it that compels them to enact such draconian measures? What is the source of their unrighteous anger?
Judaism
Torah Commentary- Ki Tissa: "Strong Leaders" and the Golden Calf
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I. “Strong Leadership” as Communal Failure
These days, much of the world is surprised by the ascendance of extreme demagoguery within the US political process. We are shocked by the ascendance of a disruptive “strong leader” who wishes to make “America great again” through force, violence, and hate speech. It seems like another age, the return of a malevolence that we thought was suppressed many decades ago. In contemplating this week’s texts, which deal with the flawed demands of the recently liberated people for a new form of leadership (in this case a golden calf), we can see parallels to the current situation and a response.
Judaism
Torah Commentary- Perashat Vayigash: Confronting Societal Injustice, Confronting Ourselves
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In these troubled times, when we see societal tolerance of speech approaching that of fascism, when open hate speech about anything or anyone approximating an “enemy”, where even the victims of oppression are treated with hostility and suspicion, one feels helpless in attempting to maintain a sense of justice and decency. How does one respond to what appears to be a situation of crisis? What kind of discourse is appropriate as a response? This week’s perasha (Torah portion) begins at a similar moment of crisis- All seems lost. An innocent descent to Egypt to purchase food has ended up with youngest brother Benyamin imprisoned by the enemy authorities.
Empathy
View from the Ladder
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Eighty years ago, the United States debated whether it would open its doors to Jewish refugees fleeing the terror of the Nazis. It did not. And this historical echo was not lost on me, as I’m sure it was not lost on Jews throughout this country. These have been weeks of significant gravity. Serious things have happened.
Judaism
Torah Commentary: Perashat Vayetze- Dreams of a Refugee
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When I reached manhood, I saw rising and growing upon the wall shared between life and death, a ladder barer all the time, invested with an unique power of evulsion: this was the dream….Now see darkness draw away, and LIVING become, in the form of a harsh allegorical asceticism, the conquest of extraordinary powers by which we feel ourselves confusedly crossed, but which we only express incompletely, lacking loyalty, cruel perception, and perseverance…. Rene Char, Fureur et Mystere
In the traditional literature, the patriarch most symbolic of the Jewish people is Jacob (Yaakov in Hebrew), who comes into his own in this week’s Torah reading. While more of a passive player in the previous episode, Jacob comes to life- as he is forced into exile. This essay will deal with dreams, the dreams of a refugee. It is not accidental that the first dream recorded in the Torah is associated with a man on the run, who has placed a stone from the road under his head in order to sleep.
Judaism
Torah Commentary- Noah: Transcending Deluge-Era Consciousness
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The story of Noah is on the surface rather straight forward. The people are bad, Noah is good, God decides to wipe out the Earth but saves Noah and a large number of representative animals in a big wooden boat. After bringing down rain for 40 days and nights, the rain stops, and Noah sends out two animal emissaries, when the second finds dry land, they disembark. Makes for a great children’s book, cartoon, or sci-fi movie. Versions of this tale are found throughout the ancient world, and much literature is dedicated to the roots of this story.
Environment
Hoping for Rain- Biblical Understanding of Cosmic Order, Human’s Nature and Drought
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The earth belongs to God; maintaining the cosmic balance, the normal course of seasons and the flow of rain depends on following God’s laws! How dose this Biblical understanding is relevant to us today? How can Californians living in 2015 find meaning in old Leviticus? How can this Biblical understanding be of any relevance or inspiration to people of other faith traditions?
Christianity
For the Sake of Heaven
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Rev. Pinckney of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church led a church founded by men who gave their lives for this principle: better to risk death than abandon your people. Like those men, Rev. Pinckney took his fire pan and stood between all of us and the terrible plague that threatens to engulf us still.